Numerous types of wireless communication devices are used throughout the world each day, including devices such as cellular phones, pagers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and vehicle communication devices. Many of these devices use one or more types of communication channels, including voice and data channels, to provide a variety of services over wireless networks.
SMS messages transmit short text messages between different wireless communications devices, most commonly mobile phones. SMS messaging has a number of desirable attributes that have made it quite a popular form of communicating, including attributes pertaining to its speed and its privacy. Notwithstanding these positive characteristics, there are still instances where users of SMS messages can be subjected to nefarious third party actions, such as replay-type attacks. In a replay-type attack, an unauthorized third party intercepts a wireless message and then retransmits the message to the intended recipient at a later time pretending to be the original sender.